Resizing Images A40 - HELP!

I'm completely ignorant and thoroughly frustrated on the subject of resizing images I take with my A40. I have several questions and would greatly appreciate any assistance.

1. Per the advice I have seen on this and other message boards, I shoot images with the highest resolution and highest compression available on my camera. I understand that this is the best starting point for manipulating images, correct?

2. I assume that the Canon software that came with my camera does not have a function that allows me to change the size of my image, correct?

3. I've also got installed on my computer Microsoft Photo Editor and Dell Image Expert. I am not real familiar with either of these but have tried to use each of them to change the size of my images. When I do, I seem to get really distorted images as I reduce the size of my high quality image to a smaller size. Why is this? Solutions?

4. When you reduce the size of an image, are you reducing the dimensions of the image, the pixels of the image, or both? Microsoft Photo Editor seems to allow you to reduce to a certain dimension size while Dell Image Expert allows you to reduct pixel size. Are they effectively accomplishing the same thing?

5. What size images do I need for email?

6. What software should I use for this?

I realize these are very basic questions, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Email me at berob2002@hotmail.com if you need to contact me. Thank you.

Ok Bob, lets giv'er a try here.
1) True
2) False
3) Don't know. Not good programs to use for editing anyway. Stop using them. You lose the exif data from your photos.
4) Yes and no. But you should not be losing image
quality.
5) What ever servers allow. Also depends how long you want to wait for the mail to send.
6) This question is a little confusing. What software to use for e-mailing photos? You got me there. I just normally send as attachments. Maybe I'm missing something on this one.

These are very simple answers and please do not settle on my word for it. Keep doing research. Hopefully one of the more experienced forum members will give some more expert answers with more detail.